Pipe Dream
by Eggo Waffles
Summary: Lucy comes to terms with her Faun fetish. Tumnus comes to terms with the fact that his teapot is broken. LucyTumnus parody... don't say you weren't warned.


**Disclaimers:** I do not own "The Chronicles of Narnia" or any of the characters therein, as they are the property of C.S. Lewis and (gulp) Walt Disney Pictures.

**A/n:** Having reread the _Narnia_ series for the kajillionth time, seen the movie three times, listened the soundtrack practically to death, and found myself dangerously in the way of becoming a Tumnus fangirl, I finally decided to investigate the C.S. Lewis pages here on FF dot net. This parody will probably be more (hopefully) amusing if you've read a few Older!Lucy/Tumnus fics, but it isn't a necessity.

Since this is my first foray into the slowly growing Narnia fandom, constructive criticism would be most helpful. :-)

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It was on a gusty, snow-spotted winter afternoon that Queen Lucy, sequestered in the comparative warmth of her oldest friend's cave over tea and sardines, set down her cup abruptly on the table and said, "Mr. Tumnus, we need to Talk."

The Faun peered at her bemusedly. "Isn't that what we've been doing for the last thirty minutes?"

Lucy sighed. "I meant that we needed to talk about something _specific."_

"Ah. I see." He sipped his tea. "You humans really use the strangest expressions sometimes."

Silence fell over the cavern, unbroken but for the crackling of the fire in the grate and the whistling of the wind against the single small window.

Presently, Lucy said, "_Well?"_

"Well?" repeated Tumnus.

"Aren't you going to ask me what about?"

Tumnus, who, even after many years of companionship with the four Pevensies, was still struggling to understand the formalities of human conversation, quickly asked the obligatory question. "Well then, Lucy, what was it that you wanted to Talk about?"

Apparently satisfied, the young Queen crumbled a teacake absently. "It's about my suitors."

"Suitors?" Tumnus's voice cracked as he worked his mouth around the loathsome word. For some reason, the very mention of "suitors" made him cross, though he was hard-pressed to understand Why.

"Yes, suitors." Lucy paused. "I get quite a few of them, you know—not as many as Susan, mind, but that's only to be expected—but it seems that I manage to scare them off almost as quickly as they come."

"Oh." Tumnus, eager to steer the conversation out of dangerous waters, picked up the teapot. "More tea?"

"No, thank you." As he refilled his own cup, Lucy went on. "It's not really of any great loss to me."

"The tea?"

"The suitors."

"Ah."

"Empty-headed sods, the lot of them. Still, I'm hard-pressed to think of what I'm doing _wrong_, that they're all so keen to run off like that. I mean, it's not as if I've asked them to do anything all _that_ peculiar…"

Tumnus, sipping his tea, looked up from the teacup rim that he had been regarding most intently. "If it's not impertinent to ask," he said tentatively, "what exactly _have_ you asked them to do?"

"Not much. I usually just ask them to wear goat horns and furred breeches while they're courting me. It puts me at ease."

Tumnus, who had expected something more along the lines of flowers or chocolate, nearly choked on his tea. "Is that kind of thing common in… in Spare Oom?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, far be it from me to make any assumptions about the intrigues of court," said Tumnus perplexedly, "but that sounds rather peculiar to _me."_

"Indeed?"

"Yes."

Silence fell over the cavern a second time, unbroken but for the continued crackling of the fire in the grate and the resumed whistling of the wind against the single small window. Lucy continued to mangle her teacake determinedly, and Tumnus continued to drink his tea, doing his best to ignore the small bit of sardine that seemed to have somehow gotten into the bottom of the cup.

"Mr. Tumnus, do you know what it reminded me of, when my suitors wore goat horns and furred breeches?"

Tumnus, caught off-guard by the oddity of the question, could only say that he couldn't possibly guess.

"A cross between a gargoyle and Canadian fur trapper."

Tumnus stared. "_Pardon?"_

Lucy went on. "But if I squinted a bit and turned my head thirty-three degrees to the left, what do you suppose they reminded me of _then?"_

"Er, a blurry smudge?"

The youngest Pevensie sighed. "No. They reminded me of Fauns, Mr. Tumnus. Fauns."

Silence fell over the cavern a third time, and this time it truly was unbroken, though more for the purpose of dramatic emphasis than any naturally borne cause.

"Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you, Mr. Tumnus?"

The Faun shook his head dumbly.

Lucy, suddenly exasperated, burst out, "I'm _trying_ to tell you that I'm in love with you!"

As he processed these fateful words, Tumnus's mind was suddenly inundated with a veritable maelstrom of epiphanies, and with a speed and conviction that only seems to exist within the realm of romantic fiction, realized his own true feelings. "As I love you, Lucy dear."

"Oh, Mr. Tumnus!" And with that, Lucy threw herself across the table, knocking the tea things aside in her wake, and flung her arms around Tumnus's neck. Startled, he patted her on the back of the head and tried very hard to ignore the fact that she had just broken his best teapot.

Presently, she pulled away, subsiding back into her chair with a bitter sigh. "Oh, this is dreadful!" she muttered, massaging her temples fitfully.

Tumnus frowned. "Might I ask if it is commonplace for humans to be so despondent upon receiving a declaration of affection?"

"That's just it!" cried Lucy. "I'm a human. And you… you're… you're a Faun."

"So I noticed," replied Tumnus.

"Well, it's not exactly _conventional_, is it? And I'm not even sure if it's anatomically _possible,"_ she added, with a meaningful raising of the eyebrows.

Tumnus blushed a delicate shade of crimson at the unseemly allusion and muttered that it couldn't really be _that_ complicated.

"Love, you're half-goat," said Lucy flatly. "This might qualify as bestiality."

His flush deepened further. "Perhaps," he ventured, "we might apply to Aslan?"

"Aslan?"

"Yes. Aslan. It may be that he can help us." He paused. "Perhaps he could—oh, I don't know, transform me into a human, or the like?"

"Oh, _no,"_ exclaimed Lucy, shaking her head vehemently. "That would _never_ do. It… it wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't have that animal side to you." Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. "And you wouldn't be able to give me pipe-blowing lessons, either, I'm sure."

"Yes, I suppose my musical abilities are in some way connected to my being a Faun," said Tumnus, Lucy's one valiant attempt at a crude pun flying directly over his curly-haired head. "And—not to mean any offense—I don't think that you would make a particularly good Faun, either."

"No, I suspect not," said Lucy. "Whatever are we going to do? I mean, this is all very romantic from the waist up, but…"

Tumnus considered. "Supposing… supposing we just… cross that bridge when we come to it?"

Lucy frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why don't we worry about… that… later, and confine ourselves to… to…"

"Oh, I see what you mean!" cried Lucy, cottoning on. "You mean things like smooching and snuggling and exchanging desperately clichéd lines and playing footsie?"

"Hoofsie," amended Tumnus.

"Footsie."

"Hoofsie."

"Footsie."

"Hoofsie."

"Footsie."

"Hoofsie."

"All right, forget the feet…"

"Hooves."

"Yes, them. We can nuzzle noses instead, or something."

"That sounds suitable to me. And, of course, you do realize," added Tumnus, "that all our stories together will have to be rated at least 'T'."

Lucy blinked. "What? Why?"

"Because I'm never wearing a shirt."

"Too true. Though you should make sure you keep a scarf on—for modesty's sake."

"For modesty's sake, of course."

"Of course."

"Well, now that the particulars…"

"_Some_ of the particulars," said Lucy.

"… _some_ of the particulars," agreed Tumnus, "have been squared away… Queen Lucy, would you like to formally become Romantically Involved™?"

"Of course," replied Lucy cheerfully, before adding, "If you have sardines."

The Faun smiled. "By the bucketload."

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**A/n:** Wow, I've forgotten how hard it is to write a new fandom—and that things which seem devastatingly clever at 2 AM rarely work so well when you try to write them later. Oh well. I guess first experiments can afford to be bad.

By the way, in case anyone from my Alerts list is reading this and wondering why I'm mucking around in other fandoms when I should be updating my LotR fic, rest assured that Chapter 11 is due to be uploaded on Monday. :-)


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